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Ok I finally have a picture of Ryzom status.

I am wondering, hasn't anyone tried to start a second full Ryzom using the opensource material? Not an exact clone since it would be useless but a mantained and evolving version of it.

Not that I have seen. I looked, but it seems no one has any interest. If you have the heart ,will power, leadership, money to run a dedicated server, and make it not pay 2 win, I will join:). If swg emulator pulls off 1500 people, and 2 3 grand a month,I am sure this could. Esp if said person added better content, used pay pal right, and based it in the USA. The rasoni found no one has is because, the free server thing is bare bones, so you need to make everything.

The only experience I have is with days, but I will help. I will also write quest dialog. I am no programmer though.

I see. Most viable option would be to acquire the whole thing from Winch Gate. On the other hand, such a populated world (not just by players but by database-driven stuff) could make it very difficult to try more ambitious refining.

While keeping Ryzom as it is right now, I wouldn't mind participating in a low-scale experimental spin-off to retake the original ideas and fully develop them. It would make it much easier to fix bugs in the process too. Both branches could benefit from each other.

New mechanics could be added, or current ones adapted, or simply reconfigured. I mean that depth of work doesn't need to be excessive in order to achieve satisfactory results. And could be even fun to play if it pursues that goal from the very begining.

Just imagine rich combat dynamics (ignoring magic for a second), not just "I am a master with elite gear smashing your head over and over".


How do you people feel about it?

I don't want my data on an american server. I'm not interested participating in development for free either. If it actually became something cool (which I doubt) I might join and play every now and then, maybe even pay a similar amount as current subscription.

Kailo: Like already said in this thread, look at ryzom forge, you can also write missions there.

Madre: You might want to look at Khaganat.net (at least if you speak french :)) and IRC channel #khanat (http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=khanat). They are trying to build pretty much what you said in your last posts.

Khaganat is looking forward to become a full and ambitious game. That's a big deal.

I would forfeit most of content and background related material in favor of *simply* achieving rich and fun gameplay dynamics based on Ryzom (and generally oriented towards it), that could be later ported to other worlds or simply enjoyed. You know, those things that can't be done in production servers. Just adding the content needed for testing (and having fun in the process) should be enough.

Would it help Ryzom? Would it help others? I don't know, it all depends on fairies and politics. But it sounds like a good arrangement given the current (yet everlasting) situation.

It's an idea, not a proposal.

There would be many aspects to explore. Is the level/quality ladder working well? Does it represent a problem in low population situations? Is it entertaining or plain boring? Is the class-less system fulfilling it's promises? Can players develop and enjoy their own personal style? Is every skill line meaningful? How do they synergize when solo and when in team? Is interaction with ecosystems satisfactory? Are new players receiving the right stimulus in the early stages to crave for more? Is the "world as a system" idea able to provide fun for veterans and newcomers alike? Is it worth paying for, statistically talking? etc

Many possible questions and even more possible answers.

I don't want to answer all of them. Else I would just become a game developer and probably make my own product :p But who knows, maybe Ryzom community is up to the challenge.

-for fun

OK, in my (not really humble) opinion please do NOT mess with Ryzoms classless system. That is one of the reasons I love this game. I will not play a game that is class based. Period.

Yes, there are problems with the bugs and glitches in the game, and in my opinion, that is the only thing that makes this game less than perfect. Other than that, I am willing to tolerate these bugs and glitches.

Also, a few months ago, I had accidentally deleted a character. I had been playing that character for about a year-and-a-half. T comtacted tech support immediately after I had deleted the character. Now, it took about a week, but the dead character had been reincarnated.

THAT, support, although somewhat slow, was a damn good thing, It had saved me from having to was another year-and-a-half to get my character back.

I do not know if another such game would have done this thing, but I think that tech support is a damn fine job.

DAMN... I am rambling again.....oops.... sorry!

Yeah, they seem to care about the players here. That is one of the better things about this game. I can tell you some games wouldn't of helped you at all, and could care less, if you quit over it.

Having done all levels in a time of 3yrs3mths3days (the last figure a bit staged, could have done it in 1 or 2 days but could not resist :)), I dare say, yes. There are some problems, of course. And without permacats it would have taken longer (before the merge I had only 21 levels mastered).

Depends. I recall a situation when I had all melee fight and off magic levels above 147 (max lvl of stingas) and was practically unable to go ahead without a healer (I found some tricks for ele later, e.g. killing cuttlers in SC down the cliff in OO). It was not easy to find a healer all times - mind that Leanon was much less populated than today's Atys. Some day, I decided to let my little sister Diwu (subbed second account) come down to mainland to support me as a healer and careplanner. That made me somewhat more independent from other players' time schedule. Everytime, I enjoyed cooperation with other players more and preferred it over just playing with my second self (mind that Diwu is a much different RP personality, often disagreeing, teasing, mocking, or scolding me :)).

Yet, if you experience boredom or delay in leveling the 63 skills, create an alt. Even a f2p is fully sufficient for healing and CP.


Many questions, a few answers.

Yes, classless system is gorgeous and perfectly great. Having played some other MMO, I would say that it is priceless and absolutely indispensible.
At least I can say that I did develop and enjoy my personal style and still do (so does Diwu, as far as I am entitled to speak for her). Some hate me for, some like it, some may laugh about.
Interaction with ecosystems is unique in the world of MMOs as far as I experienced them. This world has some kind of "real" biology, in fauna and flora, consistent, even scientifically logical, and extremely impressive. I do not know a single other MMO with these features.
I cannot speak for other newcomers. It is now 4,5 years ago that I was a complete newbie to the game. I was fascinated and caught from the first couple of hours on. The feeling of still being a noob did not subside for a couple of years, until I had experienced most of the world, all regions, and completed the skill ladder. Even now, I would not assert to know all of Atys, or to have experienced everything to learn, though my cumulated playtime is too high to publish it.
As to paying for, I considered and still consider it worth while to pay for two subbed accounts. In fact, that is no more expensive than one subbed acc in certain more boring MMOs I played in the past.



I tried to answer a few of them. Don't know whether it was helpful for you.

Greetings, Daomei

The classless system was a bit deceiving to me. I thought I could find and master my own style but it was more like a list of things to grind, ordered by priority, and then behaving like everybody else (besides roleplaying).

Two characters end up being the same. Hence the question, is it a classless or a single-class game?

I would love to experiment with another layer over the skill system, so a player could orientate a certain character towards a certain style. A matrix where you could substract effectiveness from a certain tree and add it to another one, maybe enabling access to special stanzas. And stanza lines too, or even more basic aspects.

Do you prefer magic over combat? Elemental over healing? Fire over cold? Armor crafting over weapon crafting? Do you want to become Bruce Lee? Maybe the god Loki (madnesssssss)? A shaolin wizard with spiked amps? The fastest runner on Atys? A titanical brute who doesn't know the meaning of accuracy? A weird combination of them?

All skill lines should be meaningful and balanced though, and synergies studied.

- But I want it all in a single character! That's why I like Ryzom!

Can't argue with that :p But I miss being creative. Fun would never end for as long as you want to test new stiles, alone and in teams. And it would still be completely classless.

When devs talked about the "new encylopedia" being prepared, they said that we will have new rites that give special abitilies but those rites would exclude each others, so we'll cant have all.

that's still a tiny variation for our toons.

[EN]
Until 2 characters end up the same way, they have to go a very long way. I know what I am speaking about, and so do the not so many players who also completed the whole skill tree.

Even having done that, I am not nearly such a good digger as several players I know, I am not an equally good crafter as e.g. Lacuna, and I miss any of the PvP abilities e.g. Virg or Zendae possess. I lack access to PR teleporters (at least until the Rangers' rite will be complete).

So I fail to see that we are all alike, the game is too large for that. It took me months to get my tribe fames to my alignment's maximum, or to reach all exploration points. Not few players do not care for those achievements which is perfectly fine.

Surely a change of the skill system as you describe it might work, might even be interesting. Yet I consider such a radical change far too much for the programming and testing manpower available, and not really so interesting and challenging as, say, new continents, missions, bosses etc., and probably a new development of the Lore and ingame history.

This would be stuff for an hypothetical experimental server.

Please nobody feel threatened by evil changes :)

Personally, the only thing I could see as a gameplay improvement to Ryzom (other than fixing the bugs ofc) is a real time combat system more similar to ESO or its likes. But that's just my personal taste, some people dislike that type of combat.

When I first started playing Ryzom I also felt a bit like that: that underneath all the freedom of a classless skill based system with dozens of skills to choose from, it all boiled down to choosing the 4 or 5 most "optimal" skills to play with and everyone was basically the same.

But that impression was wrong. I think in small scale PVP is where it becomes abundantly clear just how diverse and unique your character's fighting style, crafted gear, mastered skills and stanza building can be. There's no such thing as a "perfect build". Basically you need to be flexible and use different strategies to fight different opponents. As for the stanzas and actions, a player with "inferior" gear who knows how to build effective stanzas for the right situation can easily defeat another one with all the shiny uber stuff.

I suppose in PVE all the nuances of the skills and stanzas may not be as evident, specially when you're in a team with unlimited heal and no real need for concern or strategy. But yea, I don't think all the skills are exactly balanced. Some are clearly more useful than others. But that doesn't concern me so much tbh.

I do believe the grind can be a bit tedious though, specially in the lower levels. I've seen many players who loved the concept and theme of the game, but couldn't deal with the grind and left before mastering their first skill. I'm not sure what could be done to improve that though, short of making a "theme park" option for players to level their first skill branch with a mission-driven storyline - like Silan. But that's hardly a solution for players who really don't like Ryzom's gameplay. It just keeps them around for another month or so.